Week Fourteen of the National Football League season is to a fan of the game what Christmas morning is to a five-year-old. Four games offer great matchups between division leaders and three of them are in prime time beginning with tonight's meeting in Kansas City where the Chiefs host the Oakland Raiders at Arrowhead Stadium.

The Raiders currently own the top playoff seed in the American Football Conference with a tiebreaker advantage over the team they share a 10-2 regular season mark with, the New England Patriots. But, if the Raiders lose tonight, they not only give up the top spot but would fall behind Kansas City in the tiebreaker for the AFC West by virtue of two defeats this season to the Chiefs.

The Raiders lost to Kansas City in October at Oakland, 26-10.

For Jack Del Rio’s young Raiders squad this is not a game they can afford to lose if they want to keep the top seed in the AFC and put two games between them and the Chiefs in the AFC West.

These two longtime rivals went through an extended stretch where they won on each other’s home field. Between 2007 and 2012 the Raiders won six consecutive games at Arrowhead Stadium, while the Chiefs enjoyed a 7 game winning streak in Oakland beginning in 2003.

Now, I want to be really careful how I state this and I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. So, let me state it clearly and then I respectfully ask you to read the whole article so you know what I mean.

It’s not about the money.

Okay, don’t overreact to that statement, but rather open up to the possibility of holding two thoughts at the same time; it’s not about the money and it’s all about the money.

Those two statements are not in opposition, but rather a key factor in turning sports wagering from an emotional rollercoaster to a steady-as-she-goes investment. Here’s why, the books prey on the emotions of gamblers who are quick to predictable actions that almost always leave them in the red. Why? Because gamblers wager more when they are ahead until they no longer are while thinking they are playing with “house” money. In an even worse scenario, some bet more when they are behind in an attempt to get even until they have lost much more than they ever thought they would risk.

Gamblers often base their wagers not on the strength of a point spread proposition, but rather on the success or failure of the previous result. In other words, past money wins or losses are determining current wager amounts.

That’s what I mean when I say it’s not about the money. A wager should never be about the money and only about the strength of the current point spread proposition. The amount wagered on a particular game should only be based on the value of that play … not what happened in any previous result.

When that method is followed the only thing that really matters can be realized, bottom line profits. Because, and never lose sight of this … it’s all about the money.